Jersey International Air Display: Plane to land on beach – if sea lettuce is cleared

Jersey International Air Display: Plane to land on beach – if sea lettuce is cleared

Deputy Mike Higgins, organiser of the Jersey International Air Display, has booked the Antonov AN-2 to appear at the event.

Although other aircraft have landed on the beach during recent years, Deputy Higgins said that the proposed landing site was greener than he had ever seen it before.

He is now working with staff from the Growth, Housing and Environment Department to allow the landing to go ahead.

‘Sea lettuce is a consideration and has to be put into our risk assessment, so GHE are going to clear it to make sure it is not a problem,’ he said.

‘GHE have got tractors with special machines on them which can clear a runway for where the Antonov is going.’

He added: ‘In that area – from Le Frégate, down towards the West Park Bathing Pool, I think it is worse than it has ever been there. It is the greenest I have ever seen it.

‘I want to make sure we can go ahead with the plans, so we will clear it before the landing. It is a very popular aircraft and it is the biggest biplane around.’

It is not the first time an aircraft has used the beach as a runway during the display.

Before 1937, when the Airport first came into operation, West Park was used as a makeshift airstrip, with planes regularly landing on the beach.

Then, in 2007’s Jersey International Air Display, for the first time in 50 years, a De Havilland Dragon Rapide landed on the beach.

And last year a glider landed on the beach before being towed off again and returning to the Airport.

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